Taxed to the Max

I started doing my taxes this week and was surprised to find that I may have to pay Uncle Sam almost six hundred dollars. It was a combination of things that led to this unfortunate situation. First, I received 4 weeks of unemployment for which no tax had been taken out. Then I paid off my house, so now I don't have any interest to deduct. And finally, there was interest from taxable investments. I tried to add to my IRA earlier in the year, but the bank said that I couldn't add to my existing IRA and that I would need to open a new one. I said boo to that. I should have probably sold one of my loser stocks. I always seem to have a few of those every year. I still might be able to deduct the money I spent on classes I took in 2005. But I'm not sure how much that is going to help. I think I was figuring that I would be in a lower tax bracket this year and that a tax refund was almost guaranteed. No dice my fellow American. Now hurry up and pay the man!

Video Editing Tips

This week I am starting work on the 5 hours of home video that I shot in 2005. Most of it was taken during the few times my girlfriend and I took weekend trips or on her trip to Texas. At work I use Adobe Premiere for professional seminar videos. But at home I like to use Microsoft Movie Maker. I frequently work on 5 hour videos with lots of edits and transitions. It usually take me a week to finish a 4 part seminar video. Most of those videos are shot with one camera which stays focused on the speaker. I'll have to break the home video into several small mini-videos and then make them selectable from a DVD menu. Here are a few tips for editing video on a computer:

- Don't work on too much video at a time.
- Think of your viewer and cutout boring parts.
- Use transitions other than dissolve sparingly.
- Place 5 second titles before each new segment.
- Adjust audio levels for all videos segments.
- Add music to enhance parts of your video.
- Test your work by burning it onto a RW DVD.

This made me think of adding a short promotional video to my homepage. I can show off my video editing skills and replace that pic of the old car getting pushed with something more interesting. One project always leads me to another. Happy editing!

Treasures of Egypt

This week I made plans to visit one of the local Indian casinos that now populate this fine country. My girlfriend heard about a web site, which lets you play slot machines for a chance at winning real cash. They give away $5000 each month. It's hard to believe that they can give away that kind of money just from the revenue generated by a few ads. The site is www.freeslots.com. I don't recommend online gambling, but this site is free and has some slot machines that play like the real thing. The site is addictive, and you can find yourself wasting hours as you try to find a favorite machine to build up your credits on. My favorite is Treasures of Egypt. But you would be a fool if you think that playing an online slot machine will make a trip to an Indian casino any more fruitful.

Xbox 360 Hype

I've been a loyal Xbox owner since November of 2001. But I can't say I've been a happy gamer the whole time. Being one of the early buyers of the original Xbox, I have endured more than my share of dirty disk errors. I had some games that played great and others that wouldn't play at all. I got so frustrated that I stopped playing my Xbox and packed it away for about two years. Then I came across a web site that helped explained the problem and offered several solutions.

http://www.llamma.com/xbox/

This is the best xbox repair/mod web site you can find, period. The problem was due to a poor quality DVD drive. Basically, there are three drive brands that M$ was using in the old Xbox. Thompson=crap, Phillips=good, and Samsung=great. Of course I had the Thompson drive. They are pure crap. About a year ago I replace my Thompson with a Samsung and I haven't had a dirty disc error since. Why didn't M$ recall all Thompson drives? They can hype it all they want, but that question alone will weigh heavily on my decision to purchase a 360.